Thinking about starting a blog for passive income but not sure if it is right for you?
Blogging isn’t for everybody, it takes hard work, dedication and self motivation. For the ones who can hustle through the early dark days, the sky is the limit.
If you are not sure whether blogging is the path for you to achieve your dreams, here are 7 alarming signs that you may not be ready to start a blog for passive income…
Disclosure: Some of the links in the article contains affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase through it, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the blog and allows me to continue to make free content. I will only recommend products that I use and love. Thank you for your support!
Sign #1: You Want to Get Rich Quick
Starting a blog is a great way to make passive income.
Many successful bloggers turned blogging into a full-time income stream and built a lucrative online business. But don’t be fooled by their success on the surface…
Blogging is NOT a get rich quick scheme.
Most bloggers don’t make any money during their first 6-12 months.
In this blog post, I shared 5 inspiring top bloggers income reports, and how long it took them to reach $10,000/month.
While I don’t know any get rich quick schemes if you want to make some extra money fast online, here are a few legitimate ways that I have tried and tested…
The Positive Side:
Starting a blog for passive income, is a type of business that initially requires very low investment. So you can test the water for a period of time without breaking your bank.
Having a great blogging platform with step-by-step training to fast track your progress is extremely important too.
I used Wealthy Affiliate to get my blog off the ground and running in a couple of days. It’s one of the best value for money all-in-one blogging platforms I came across.
Use my link below to get your FREE trial membership.
Sign #2: You Are Not Willing to Put the Hard Work, Especially at the Beginning
Before your blog starts to bring passive income, it requires some serious upfront work from you.
Many of us started as a side hustle, working beyond our 9 to 5’s. If you are not willing to sacrifice evenings and weekends to put the hard work in, especially at the beginning, blogging might not be for you.
The Positive Side:
Blogging is not only lucrative but also a flexible way to make passive income around family schedules.
Once you have established the foundation and started to be profitable, the success just snow balls. This also means that you can scale back to 15-20hrs/week while making a full-time income.
Mommy blogger Suzi Whitford made $39,888 in Aug. 2017 after 16 months blogging while raising her young children. With the income generated from blogging, she even retired her husband from his full-time job.
Blogging is for hustlers and overachievers with big dreams. If that’s you? strap your self in for a challenging yet rewarding ride ahead.
Sign #3: You Start the Blog ONLY For Passive Income
Life is too short, so do what you actually love!
If the only reason to start a blog is to make passive income, you may want to consider other options.
The way successful bloggers make money is, by helping people to solve particular problems through creating helpful content, and by sharing and recommending products and services of others and/or their own.
When you love what you do, this comes across more genuine to your audience, which creates trust. The more trust you create with your audience, the more likely they will purchase the products and services that YOU recommend instead of Joe Bloke the sales man.
The Positive Side:
You can blog just about ANYTHING… so find a niche that you are passionate about. Start to figure out who your audience is, and what problems need solutions. So you can create content to help them solve those problems.
Passion is what will propel you through challenging times.
Need some niche ideas? Crab my FREE cheat sheet on 62 profitable blogging niche ideas
Sign #4: Don’t Start A Blog for Passive Income If You Hate Working Alone
I don’t want to sugar coat this – blogging can be long hours on your own in front of your computer.
If you are the type of extravert that needs in-people interactions while working, you may find working from home alone very challenging.
The Positive Side:
As a blogger, I interact with my peer bloggers and audience quite a lot on social media. Being part of the Wealthy Affiliate, I also have a community to support and interact with.
But to be honest, if it’s the in- people interaction that you need while working, I am not sure there is a way around it.
Sign #5: You Are Not Self Motivated
As a blogger, you are your own boss!
No one is going to push you to do anything but yourself. This means you need to set your own goals and craft your own path to achieve them.
There will be dark days, especially at the beginning that you will feel like you are putting 120% of effort without seeing any short term results. The ones who can’t pick themselves up gave up within the first a few months. However, the ones that are self-motivated, and kept pushing through, are the ones that are eventually making it a success.
The Positive Side:
We all get knocked down sometimes, but you don’t have to go through it alone. There are so many resources out there to keep bloggers and entrepreneurs motivated.
Personally, my biggest motivator is Mel Robbins. In fact, funny enough she doesn’t believe in motivation. The no-bullshit mental health mogul believes in “just do it” mentality.
Check out Mel Robins’s Take Control of Your Life workbook to help you figure out how to silence fear and win the mental game.
I also listen to Audible and Podcast on various blogging, online business and personal growth related subjects to keep my spirits high.
Sign #6: Start a Blog for Passive Income If You Shy Away From Writing
“Blogging is writing something on a blog” – Oxford dictionary.
So if you dislike writing, the chances are, you won’t enjoy blogging.
The Positive Side:
You don’t have to be a professional writer to be a blogger. In fact, most of the successful bloggers don’t have a degree in journalism or English.
What you do need, is the ability to have a voice. Focus on creating content that is helpful to your audience.
I am an Engineer by trade with English being my 2nd language, the writing was NOT my strongest trait. But I love blogging as an outlet to share my views and to help people, so I stay calm and keep writing.
As for the mechanics of writing, I leave it tools like Grammerly (for FREE), and my personal editor, AKA my husband, who tirelessly reads through every single post.
The good news is, the more you write, the better you get, and the more confident writer you become. I can see a huge difference in myself even after 3 months of consistent blogging.
So if an Engineer whose English is her second language can do it, you can too!
Sign #7: You Hate Dealing with Social Media
Creating helpful content on your blog is only half of the equation of making passive income, the other half is promoting it. The traffic to your blog won’t just come if you are not putting content out in front of your audience.
Guess where most of the people are hanging out these days? – Social media.
So if you hate dealing with social media like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter etc., you will struggle to make that passive income from your blog.
The Positive Side:
As overwhelming as social media sounds, you don’t have to do all at once at the beginning.
Tackle one platform at a time. Master it before you move to the next.
Pinterest, in my experience, is one of the most effective social media platforms to bring traffic, especially for your new blog.
Thanks to the eCourse “Paid by Pinterest”. It helped me to get traffic to my blog straight out of the gate, and build momentum within the first 3 months.
Another reason that I recommend Pinterest as the first social media platform to tackle, is that you can use an auto-scheduler tool to make you more efficient. Tailwind, a partner to Pinterest that helps you schedule pins on autopilot, assists you with the latest Pinterest best practice, so you can focus your time on creating content rather than spending hours on Pinterest.
Try 100 pins with Tailwind here for FREE (No time limit)
Here’s 1 Undeniable Sign that You ARE Ready to Start a Blog for Passive Income
If you’ve made it this far, and still reading, that is an undeniable sign that you might just be ready to start your blog.
When I first started, I was very naive about how much work it will take. Thanks to the FREE membership trial in Wealthy Affiliate. The community members gave me realistic views on what to expect on the journey before I made a decision to give this a serious try.
I want to give this gift to readers like you who are thinking about starting a blog but want to go in with eyes wide open.
Blogging is bloody hard work, especially at the beginning. But if you are passionate about your niche subject and helping people, you will find it so rewarding. And yes, the money isn’t bad either =)
There are other ways to start a blog for passive income (which I tried and failed) due to lack of step-by-step training, and technical support etc.
This all changed when I joined Wealthy Affiliate. While I am a premium member with them, I am also an affiliate, because I want to help beginners like you to get the ball rolling FAST… And I get to give 3 Special Bonuses.
Try Wealthy Affiliate for FREE here…
My 3 Special Bonuses for you:
If you join the premium membership within the first 7 days after starting your free trial, you will receive…
- My Bonus #1 – $30 OFF of your first-month Premium membership. (Instead of $49/month, you only pay $19)
- My Bonus #2 – 24/7 support from me, with access to private messages.
- My Bonus #3 – Learn from experience: 5 Mistakes Newbies Make at Wealthy Affiliate (A video, via email)
Whether Wealthy Affiliate is the right for you, it is completely your decision. However, all the tips and resources in this post still apply.
Remember, you are just one decision away from starting something amazing!
Cheers to your success,
Chloe
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It truly is a not get rich quick business. I too have a blog and it takes incremental work day in and day out to achieve success. But if you are one of the people that work hard on it every day and follow the instructions at Wealthy Affiliate then you too can make money while you sleep. Passive income is where it is at. This is the income that everyone should strive to accomplish for themselves. It is hard work but it is definitely worth it. Thank you for letting the reader know the honest truth in starting a blog site.
Can’t agree more Eric. Hard work will eventually pay off!
Great reminder to those that want to make a quick buck from the time they start a blog or business. It takes a lot of work and patience, there are no short-cuts and gaining a loyal following will take time. Passive income is the ultimate goal but many opt out since it takes time, even some of the best programs have a major drop out rate at 4 months. Investment of time and money is important to any online business. I hope a lot of people find your seven signs, it’s right on the mark!
I hope new bloggers have a realistic expectation when they start this challenging but rewarding journey of blogging for passive income.